How did you get on?

[mikench]

Well done John ! Lovely fish and worth the wait! Last Sunday we( er indoors, eldest dotter and boyfriend) visited Rode Hall in Scolar Green Cheshire and saw something similar.

shell around me

There is a large estate lake and I'm enquiringly as to fishing permits!

 

[103841]

That sounds interesting Mike, is it this water?

Rode Pool - Stoke-on-Trent Angling Society

 

[peter crabtree]

14 codgers turned up today for our weekly fixture. The GUC near Tring was coloured and the weather fair.

]

I started on waggler and pinkie across to the far bank margin, quite often there’s a few skimmers over there but not today it seems..
I was feeding liquy just over the near shelf meanwhile. After half an hour I dropped in to it with punch and the float buried almost immediately. A good bream netted then another on the very next cast. That was it for the next 4 hours. In desperation I chopped 2 dozen worms and put them in the same area via dropper. Worm on the hook eventually found a perch which fell of as I tried to net it....
It didn’t make any difference anyway as I won the day with my 2 bream for 4:13:0.
2nd had 2 bream for 4:9:0. 3rd. 4:1:0 small skimmers and bits..

]

 

[mikench]

That sounds interesting Mike, is it this water?

Rode Pool - Stoke-on-Trent Angling Society

Yes that's it John! Shame it's affiliated but not surprising! I will have a look at the club!

 

[barbelboi]

I ventured back to the local gravel pit with the hope of a/some tench - not over optimistic with the conditions and a top temperature of 13C. However things perked up a tad with three tench from a sheltered bay and, although not a day to note, a bit of an improvement. Fished from 10-4.

 

[bullet]

With the back lawn mown, a trip to the tip ( no charges for plaster board, rubble or wood and free compost to boot!) and a wall plastered its time to kick back with a glass of red and contemplate, maybe have a crack for a brine trite on a dray flay after dinner, though I’ll probably end up chucking a feeder out for a barbel.

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Go with the dray flay, things are hotting up around here..

 

[Roger Johnson 2]

Go with the dray flay, things are hotting up around here..

View attachment 6669

Unfortunately after another glass of contemplation, I ended up falling asleep! However avoiding temptation to only one glass this evening I managed to drag myself down to the river, fly rod and dray flay in hand unfortunately the trite had different ideas and firmly stayed low, didn’t see a single rise, oh well try again tomorrow.


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[theartist]

Had a couple of hours on a natural water yesterday catching roach and rudd to 10oz and lots of them too in a swim I had just raked, but walked away beaten up by the tench, the first one took me unawares as no one was catching any tench on the whole lake, my 3lb 8oz bottom was nowhere near strong enough to stop it going straight through a small clump of pads and out the other side, I tried valiantly but my deftest touch was no match for a tinca amongst the lillies.

Stepping up to 5lb bottom and 6lb mainline and stronger hook made no difference to the next fish which I bullied away from the pads but into a dense clump of that light green weed that grows beneath the surface in huge clumps in clear ponds and rivers, we used to call it starweed and it's common in chalk streams but I can't remember it's name. Anyhow this tench went straight through it and that was a break off too. The way the fish powered about three metres in to it was impressive strength. The tench here only feed during the day when it's cloudy and the bites came in a small window of cloud cover, the water is gin clear and in many places the other types of weed were already reaching the surface.

Talked to the guy in the next peg who lost his only two on the pole, this weirdly made us both feel better, brothers in failure but you can't win them all. I didn't register what elastic he said he had as that's all Greek to me but he did have 6lb bottom on. I'm not keen on hit and hold with heavier line so may let the big tench have it 2-0 this year.

Despite all this I love the weed and the natural look of the place, the wildlife was pretty special too as there is a pair of Red Kites which are absolutely huge compared to the ones that fly over my place, today I saw one swooping down trying to grab the coot's chick but was seen off by the plucky parents who had also seen off a rather perplexed swan earlier, the swan had earlier seen off the canada goose and all this was before I was seen off by the tench.

 

[barbelboi]

Sounds a bit like the local pit I fish Rob (above post) - gin clear with an abundance of pond weed. Lovely and quiet though...............

 

[peter crabtree]

Luton AC have taken inspiration from my old codgers matches and are starting their own. The first is next week on the GUC near Leighton Buzzard. It’s been a good few years since I fished any of their venues and the one chosen for next week I’d never seen.
So today I went up there and it was very nice, good colour, wide and plenty of far bank features.

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I started about 8am on punch and liquy down the track catching small roach. Got bored with that so chopped 2 dozen worms and cupped them in @11m on the far shelf. Put the brolly up and had a cuppa before dropping a whole worm on the baited spot. After some dithering bites, lifts and pulls, the float eventually went under, a nice roach bream hybrid. Had a few more then bumped a bigger fish.
Fed some more choppy and let it rest for a few minutes before dropping in another worm.
A minute later a positive bite and lift and a lump was hooked.
My elastic (4/6 Daiwa hydro) more suited to bream etc came shooting out, boy did it stretch. My pole was creaking and I was amazed how far that elastic stretched. I prayed a boat didn’t come along as that would have been a disaster.
With no puller bung I had to fumble in my seatbox draw for a bung abstractor and pull the bung out from inside the topkit. Then I started wrapping elastic around my hand whilst the lump showed no sign of tiring.
It then dawned on me the lump was likely to be bigger than my landing net head!
After what seemed like hours, my fingers going numb with tight elastic wrapped round them, I got it close enough to attempt netting but it just refused to come to the surface. Then the elastic broke just below the Dacron connector.
Gutted I didn’t at least see it I called it a day. My fingers eventually resumed colour and shape and I went.

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On the road home I pondered my tactics for next week. I think it’s going to be Suveran feeder rod with choppy in a maggot feeder and a robust hook and hooklink. Sod’s law will probably mean I won’t hook another lump, but I know there’s a good head of carp in there and 2 lumps would probably frame. Hmmmm?

 

[Another Dave]

The one that got away!

 

[mikench]

Being encouraged to go fishing despite an iffy weather forecast , I set off at 6.45am to a local mère of 17 acres! It's often bivvy city but today only my favoured pegs were taken! I say favoured because they afford plenty of space for 2 rods and a bivvy/ tempest brolly! I settled for a peg which couldn't accommodate the Tempest so made do with a brolly. Annoyingly 2 of the pegs I wanted became vacant within the hour as the rain arrived!

I had nothing for about 2 hours and then I caught a common of around 8lb on a hybrid feeder and 6mm chocolaté orange wafter( Thanks John Keane) but nothing on the blowback rig on the carp rod! I gave that up and set up another feeder rod with a pellet feeder.








boa near me atm

The ducks and their 12 offspring put in an appearance and I caught another carp, a bream of around 8lb( personal best) and several roach with the biggest shown above about 1.5lb again a personal best! I'm sure it was a roach but am happy to be corrected.

The light rain then changed to a downpour accompanied by thunder and lightening so I packed up before I frazzled!

I enjoyed the day despite only catching around a dozen fish but it was fun! I also christened a new bite alarm which I can actually hear and which has an on / off switch and separate controls for volume, tone and sensitivity; my wife would like the same controls!

 

[103841]

Looks a roach to me Mike, and a mighty fine size too!

 

[mikench]

Cheers John! It looked and felt big. I had a few more of similar size and glad I bothered to take a pic. It's a difficult water, but then aren't they all, and shallow. I'm grateful I didn't blank.

 

[john step]

Cheers John! It looked and felt big. I had a few more of similar size and glad I bothered to take a pic. It's a difficult water, but then aren't they all, and shallow. I'm grateful I didn't blank.

If you are catching 8lb bream and 1.5lb roach it may be a difficult water but I would say its a blooming good water.

 

[john step]

I took a mate to my syndicate reservoir water as a guest as we are recruiting the right sort of bod. Despite the water being cold still he had about 10 lb of roach and rudd. He was well pleased and hopefully nhe will join.

I had roach rudd perch and an odd bream on my old Normark float rod and Shakey Sigma wand. Mostly on worm and dead gits.

The sun came out after a drizzly start and fun was had by all.

 

[theartist]

Back on a club pond today in need of a confidence boost and still trying to get my first tench of the season, always found bread to be a killer bait for the tincas on this pond even if it means getting through the carp. Sainsburys cheapest took the pond apart and it caught every species save for perch. About 50lb of carp obliged and so did a few tench not much over a pound but tench nonetheless and I was happy with that. Plenty of bream, roach, rudd, crucians and a surprise chub of around 2lb made for a lot of variety. Also caught a few nice gudgeon and got through two loaves fishing 10mm punch in the margins.

 

[peter crabtree]

3 of us had a day on the Aylesbury arm near Tring today. I started on 4m whip with punch and had 5 bream in 5 chucks..

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A boat came through and they vanished, I couldn’t get a bite? I guessed they’d gone into the far margin so I set up a waggler and maggot on my microlight and chucked it across. My hunch paid off and I had about 15 more...
My 2 friends were really having a hard time and looked on in disbelief as I emptied my peg.
Ended up with about 40lb of the beauties...

 

[Pete Shears]

Driving to the bigger reservoir this morning was hampered by sporadic rain as well as slow moving traffic and this was at 5.30am,at least it wasn't raining at the water.Drove round to the plantation swims and set up two leger rods.The weather forecast said light easterly breeze which should have been from behind me,it was swinging continually from every direction but east and it was only 5C and with 2 days of cold rain it was a slow start but the fish finally moved on to my bait and eventually had over 20 bream,average size 4-5lb and a single 2.5lb roach/bream hybrid.The highlight was watching two ospreys trying to locate breakfast and watching two sandpipers running around just 20 yards from me and a curlew flew by calling and once again no cormorants!

 

[john step]

Not fishing. A work party to finish upgrading the electric otter fence. Hard work but necessary.